LAUSR

Abstract Nations around the world are faced with various nutritional challenges in terms of malnutrition and unbalanced nutrition to maintain healthy lifestyles and longevity of their populations. The quest for innovative interventions in existing traditional food recipes hold promises to address local and regional nutritional issues. It includes amalgamation of traditional foods with locally available ingredients for nutritional efficacy and enrichment. Such an attempt has been made on a traditional food called ‘Rabadi’ from western arid and semi-arid regions of the Great Indian Thar Desert. It is prepared by fermentation of ‘Bajra’ – a pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) cereal with addition of country buttermilk derived from defatted buffalo or cow milk yogurt. Its intervention was replacement of the buttermilk with inoculated camel milk and incorporation of local ingredients as soybean and flour of ‘Khokha’ – the ripe fruit pods of ‘Khejri’ (Prosopis cineraria) tree. The results exhibited significant enhancement of bioavailable proteins, higher digestibilities and starch hydrolysis to improve glycemic response with overall good acceptability in sensory analysis. The comprehensive results demonstrate promising enrichment of nutrition and a fair capable solution for better health prospects in proposed intervention of the traditional food recipe.